Well, I’ve been home three days and I’m starting to recover from the combination of jet-lag and cough/cold/flu virus that someone gave me as a souvenir of my holiday in America, so I think I have the energy now to start posting a little bit more about our time there.

I took a ton of photos. Isn’t it liberating, the switch from film to digital? With film, you’re constantly wondering how many more frames you have on the roll, but with digital you just keep clicking away, secure in the knowledge that a) you’re unlikely to actually fill your multi-gigabyte card in one day and b) if you do, there’s another one in your pocket.

Anyway. We flew into Las Vegas simply because it was there. I suspect most people visit Las Vegas simply because it’s there, but for us, it was also nicely situated between the places we wanted to visit for the first week, and the place I needed to be for the second. And we’d been to Vegas before by default, and we kinda liked it.

I’m going to save Vegas for later, because I have a fascinating little video I want to show you, but I think I need a widget to embed it. Anyway, you’ve already had Elton John! So the next stop was the Grand Canyon, and I’m not going to do a post on that. It’s awesome. It’s a great big awesome hole in the ground and you can do all kinds of stuff like ride mules down into it, take helicopter or 4×4 tours, or hike or camp .. but we just walked along the rim and gazed at it while trying not to melt, and besides, you’ve already had the squirrels.

So by the time we got to Bryce, we’d seen the Grand Canyon.

Now, you might think this would make Bryce a bit of a disappointment, but no. Not a bit of it. In my opinion, Bryce Canyon is utterly beautiful, and in its way, even more stunning than the Grand Canyon. You only have to look at the photo above to see why.

The colours are accurate - the rocks really were that red. Actually, earlier in the day the colours were more intense and the sky was bluer. It all depends on the light, but at any time of day, the place is just gorgeous.

I’m not going to bore you with a geology lesson. Suffice it to say that the canyon is still being formed, slowly but surely increasing in size, as the softer rock is worn away to expose those incredible rock formations known as fins and hoodoos. It looks as though it’s a bit crowded down there, but in fact there’s plenty of room between them to ride, walk, or even drive a truck - supposing you are allowed to.

If one day someone tells me I can visit either Utah or Arizona to see only one of the canyons, I’m gonna pick Bryce, with no hesitation. If it weren’t for the intensity of the sun, and the possibility of death by heatstroke, I could have sat there all day just looking at the place. It’s that beautiful.

And it has a peace all of its own.

This time the victim is Commodore Minxie, a fellow blogger, who, even though she is clearly a long-time Depp fan, didn’t truly understand what the Depp Effect was really all about.

It seems that she was able to meet the man during filming for Public Enemies at the Santa Anita racetrack, and she and the friends she had with her at the time were blown away by his sweetness and his generosity towards his fans, which will come as no surprise to those of us who’ve had similar experiences.

As you may know if you’ve read my older posts, I’ve had the honour of meeting Johnny Depp three times now, and on one of those occasions I was extremely privileged to have the chance to chat with him in an uncrowded situation. You may think that you’d be so tongue-tied that you can’t think of a word to say, but he is just so sweet, and so good at talking to people, that you feel, for those few minutes, that you’re the only person in the world of any interest to him and the conversation will flow.

At the same time, he is humble. So many people use those same words about him; sweet and humble. And that’s because it’s true - there is absolutely no feeling that you are in the presence of a Great Actor and Superstar. He clearly doesn’t feel that way about himself, and therefore in no way comes across as being conscious of any such thing. It’s a bit like meeting up with a very old and dear friend you haven’t seen for years.

Only different.

You see, the sad thing is that when you’ve met up with that old friend from years ago you can exchange phone numbers and arrange to meet again, but when your ‘old friend’ is Johnny Depp, that clearly isn’t an option. And meeting him like that, away from the glitz and glamour and frenzy of an official media circus event will alter the way you feel about him forever.

So this is the Depp Effect. He is now a real person to you, not just an actor, a superstar, or an idol on a pedestal. However, unlike many actors, superstars and pedestal-idols, Johnny Depp is worth your time. He is a genuinely super-nice person. Sure, he has ordinary, human flaws - reputedly a fearsome temper is among them - but he is a good man. Even the papparazzi can’t dig up any real dirt on him .. although they may not be trying too hard, because rumour has it they like and respect him, too. Most of them, anyway.

And so he is inspirational. Having experienced what it’s like to be in the presence of such an awesome personality, you want to be like that too. You want to be the one to make time for people and watch them smile. You want to be the one who is able to do nice things for people without feeling you have to shout about it. And you want to be the one who can feel free to do what you like without having to conform to anyone else’s standards.

For me, that meant learning that I, too, could say ‘Fuck it!’ and still be a likeable person - even if my kids do think I’m insane.

I may need a little more practice before I’m up to the Depp standard, though. Best keep trying, huh?

I’ve finally arrived home from our travels in the US, and as usual, I’m dead tired, jet-lagged, weary, aching, and this time I’m still nursing the remains of the bug I picked up out there, so I’m not quite back into the swing of things yet.

I’m starting to organise the pictures though, and just so you know I haven’t forgotten you all, let me leave you with this gem. I took the picture above at a gas station while waiting for my friends to fill their cars, and it is, as you see, a beautiful paint job. It positively gleams in the sun and the signwriting is spot on. Well, perhaps there is a teeny smidgeon of a blunder in there, but I’m sure you’ll agree it’s scarcely noticeable at all .. if you don’t actually read it, that is.

Now, how on earth did this happen? Did the guy who owns the truck insist on having his own rather uniquely creative spelling immortalised on his vehicle, despite the best efforts of the signwriter to dissuade him? Or was it simply that neither of them knew exactly how to spell that word?

In case you’re also jet-lagged, dead tired and nursing a bug, I’ve enlarged the part you should be looking at.

… Can still be sharp enough to cut you without trying. That’s what I learned today, children!

So, I have a bit of a thing for knives, and when I spotted a whole shop devoted to shiny pointy things, I had to go inside and browse. Some women can’t resist handbags, some can’t resist shoes. Whatever your fancy, you know how it is - you walk into a shop selling the objects of your desire and it’s unlikely you’ll walk out without buying something.

What I walked out with was a pair of Laguiole steak knives and an extremely beautiful and pointy William Henry folding knife with a mother-of-pearl handle. It has a liner lock, which apparently makes it more collectable, and it is not only beautiful and pointy but extremely sharp. So sharp that the first time I tried to close it, not being used to the liner lock mechanism, it fell a couple of millimetres on my thumb and cut it. So sharp that the first time I actually tried to use it for something, the first indication that I’d cut myself again was when I saw the blood besmirching it’s pearly whiteness.

I reckon it was annoyed with me for attempting something so mundane as removing a gift label using that hand-finished and superlatively sharp blade. Perhaps if I’d been trying to skin a rabbit or gut a fish it wouldn’t have happened, huh? Or maybe I’m just cack-handed and need to learn how to use the damn thing without injuring myself. Whatever. Next time, I’ll treat it with the respect it so richly deserves.

Surprisingly, we went back today so that OH could buy himself his very own William Henry. Yes, it seems he thinks my knife is a thing of beauty, and he wanted one of his own.

You should have seen the knife guy’s face when he was asked a question he’d probably never heard before:

‘Do you have any knives that aren’t quite so sharp?’

The answer was no, of course. But OH thinks he’ll manage OK … as long as he just doesn’t ever open it.